NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell was summoned to court Monday to defend a temporary restraining order she filed against a citizen who is now pushing back by claiming the mayor’s petition is full of lies and, perhaps even more controversial, confidential information.
Cantrell remained in a private room of the Civil District Court and did not surface as a hearing on the matter was postponed. But Anne Breaud was at court with her attorney, ready to fight back against Cantrell’s claims.
“There's something more here and I think we're going to get to the bottom of it,” Breaud’s attorney Justin Schmidt said. “It's created a whole firestorm of, really, an invasion of privacy of Ms. Breaud and so that's what we really want to investigate.”
Breaud admitted to snapping photographs of Cantrell sitting with her New Orleans police bodyguard Jeffrey Vappie on the balcony of the Tableau Restaurant on April 7.
Based on the photos, the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a non-profit watchdog group, filed a complaint against Vappie with the NOPD’s Public Integrity Bureau. Vappie was subsequently placed under investigation and removed from the mayor’s protection detail.
Cantrell responded by filing for a protective order against Breaud in Civil District Court, accusing Breaud of harassing her, taking other photos and videos of her at different times and sending those images to the media.
Cantrell said the photos and video were “used to attack, dehumanize, and weaponize” her character.
In her counterclaim, Breaud stated she took the pictures from the balcony of her apartment in the city-owned Upper Pontalba building and never followed the mayor, took any other images, or provided any pictures to the media.
In contrast to Cantrell’s contention that she “aggressively photographed and harassed Cantrell,” Breaud counters that “Cantrell clearly has a smile on her face and does not appear to be expressing any sense of fear or consternation that she asserted under oath.”
In her petition, Breaud states that Cantrell’s claims “diverge from reality to such an extent that a reasonable, neutral third party would be justified in drawing the conclusion that they are delusional if not outright fabricated.”
Cantrell’s criminal defense attorney, Eddie Castaing, appeared in court on her behalf. At one point, he made an offer to Schmidt and Breaud for a consent judgment to resolve the matter, but they rejected the offer.
In fact, Schmidt said he is eager to proceed with his client’s counter-claim in order to find out how the mayor obtained confidential information about his client, including her social security number and a decades-old driver’s license photo. That type of information is usually only accessible by law enforcement officials working in their official capacity through secure databases.
“There were some documents attached and I guess some statements within the petition that led us to believe there may have been a little inside baseball there and that the mayor may have been privy to some documents that a regular citizen couldn't have access to,” Schmidt said.
While Cantrell was not available for comment, City Hall later issued a statement on her behalf.
“The City of New Orleans reaffirms its original statement that Mayor Cantrell, like every citizen, has the fundamental right to safety and the ability to take necessary legal steps to protect herself and her family.
Mayor Cantrell deserves the same respect she shows others and the opportunity to pursue a good quality of life while serving the people of this city. The Mayor remains fully dedicated to doing the work to move New Orleans forward together.”
The temporary restraining order filed by Cantrell against Breaud remains in effect.
A new hearing on the case has been scheduled for June 18.
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